we zoomed with Glass House band, and this is how it went:

the gang

mariposa: hi! please introduce yourselves to our readers!

Mateo: I’m the guitar player, and this is my first time being interviewed!

Olorin: I am the bass player and lead singer.

Charlie: I play drums for Glass House and this is also first time being interviewed!

Nathan: Hi, my name is Nathan, I’m the new keyboard player and this is my first time being interviewed!

Juki: I’m Glass House’s newest member and second guitar.

mariposa: our first question for you is- how did you meet each other and what made you realize you wanted to start a band together?

Mateo: The band started around half a year before Charlie’s bar mitzvah.

Olorin: I went to school with Mateo in kindergarten, but ended up switching to another school where I met Charlie, and that’s when we started the band. It started in my dad’s studio - sort of like a school of rock type thing. He taught us the band environment- my dad used to be a bass player, and now he’s basically our band manager. We had a different keyboardist but we switched to Nathan due to differences in style with the other keyboardist and Nathan being extremely amazing. We recently added Juki, who’s also great. I think most of us are happy with where the band is at now.

Charlie: Our first performance was at my bar mitzvah after party.

mariposa: were there any roadblocks when you first started glass house that made it difficult to get the band up and running?

Mateo: There weren’t really any problems with getting the band up and running, but as we started to establish it more and started playing places, like this little club in Hollywood, we started to realize that the other keyboardist had had a different taste in music and style of playing from ours. A week before the second time playing at AMPLIFY, I got into a really bad car accident and Charlie was super sick. I played that show with whiplash and a concussion.

Olorin: The other keyboardist didn’t blend with the classic rock we were most inspired by. Mateo’s accident shook all of us up.

Charlie: There hasn’t really been any roadblocks in my band experience.Although I do always get a cold before all of our shows, it’s tradition.

mariposa: when did you get your first gig? was it everything you had hoped it to be?

Mateo: AMPLIFY was a really small place, the capacity was about 100 but we snuck in about 180 people. It felt so lively because it was a dark room that was filled way beyond capacity. It looked like a sea of people were watching us.

Olorin: Our first show was Charlie's bar mitzvah, in sixth grade. We played 3 or 4 songs, and we sounded pretty professional. AMPLIFY, an underground venue in Hollywood, was the real first gig. They’re closed now. We played 2 gigs there. Lots of local LA bands played there.

mariposa: we’ve heard a lot about artribe in the underground music community in los angeles. what can you tell us about your experiences performing there?

Mateo: The Campbells were college students, so felt really cool to experience a more established band that’s been doing it for longer. How they interacted with the crowd really stood out to me. 

Olorin: We were the first band to go up, so it was really cool to go out there and “spark the feeling” in the crowd. The Campbells had been around for a while, and I remember getting to meet them. It was nice to be able to see what their fans looked like and expand not only our fan base, but also our listening base. 

Charlie: That was a really cool show. It was just a bunch of really cool bands with a lot of really cool original songs. I forgot when we were in the set but I really liked watching the other bands. There were lots of kids from different schools, not just musicians, but people who are actually interested in that kind of music. It was fun to see everyone jumping around, I think it was one of the moshiest gigs we’ve ever played.

Nathan: Everyone there wanted to have a good time, even if the songs weren’t that great or mistakes were made - everyone just wanted to dance and have fun. The atmosphere was super cool.

mariposa: what was your favorite gig?

Charlie: Another underground band, Cohort, had just released their album and they had their album release party in my backyard with 2 other bands, ours included. A lot of people showed up. It was crazy to see so many people jumping around on my grass.

Nathan: The grass was just mud afterward. 

mariposa: what genre would you classify yourself as? are there any personal stories/songs that inspired you to get into this genre?

Mateo: One thing that I love about it is that although we all idolize classic rock, we have separate influences that come into it and are revealed in our music. I’ve definitely been turned onto different music by other band members.

Olorin: We cover multiple different genres, and we have yet to classify what we are. It’s definitely some sort of some sort of alternative, though.

Charlie: Overall we’re slightly leaned toward rock stuff, but there are lots of different genres present in our music. 

Nathan: I don't listen to the same kind of music that Glass House plays, I like more of a pop combo with classic rock.

Juki: As we develop more originals, we’ll start to narrow it down, but we’re still learning to play with each other (or i am, in particular), but I can’t say exactly what we are without having some sort of future experience with it.

mariposa: we know you had big plans for this summer… during the quarantine, what are some of the ways you have stayed connected as a band?

Mateo: We did a quarantine livestream on our instagram in Charlie's front yard. Olorin and I meet in parks or some outdoor place with acoustic guitars, playing covers or working on originals.

Olorin: We Zoom each week and come up with personal goals and assignments. 

Juki: Quarantine kinda sucks because I haven’t been able to play a gig with the band yet, which is something that I’m looking forward to, but I’ve found a lot of silver linings in the fact that I’ve been able to workshop other songs that we have in the set and learn how to play with the band. 

mariposa: if you had to look back on your time with glass house, what would be one piece of advice each of you would give to some starting musicians wanting to form their own band?

Mateo: A lot of startup bands go straight to writing original songs, which is awesome, but my biggest piece of advice is that each person should come up with a bunch of songs that they love, different genres and different albums and different influences, pick a couple of covers and just focus on learning them exactly, perfectly the way that it’s on the record. It’s helped us so much getting really tight together and nailing harder transitions. For me as a guitar player, when I learn the solo or part exactly as the way it was written, I see what the original artist does and analyze their tricks and transitions. Then, I  integrate that into originals.

Olorin: Find songs that integrate everyone and that everyone is interested in to master, so that you don’t butt heads too much. Speak up and talk to each other about concerns. 

Charlie: Play together to get to know each others’ styles. Play the songs over and over again. Doing it TOGETHER adds to the growth of the band and helps them understand how everyone plays.

Nathan: Having the same energy when you practice and when you perform makes it more fun for people watching, and for yourself. Be real with it when you perform in front of people.

check out Glass House @thebandglasshouse on instagram!